Tata Group set to foray into digital health, data analytics

In digital health, it will connect hospitals, pharmacies, laboratories and consumers, enabling preventive and predictive healthcare.MUMBAI: The Tata Group is set to foray into e-commerce, digital health and data analytics as the 147-year-old conglomerate seeks new growth drivers. The new businesses are housed under Tata Industries, which is usually the vehicle for investing and promoting sunrise ventures.The group's internal leadership meeting on Wednesday also saw its chairman Cyrus Mistry making a pitch for entrepreneurial talent to foster "experimentation and accept risks in the pursuit of new capabilities and next generation businesses".

The group has, for the first time, spoken about its e-commerce venture, which will be a marketplace modelled on the likes of Amazon and Flipkart. It will offer both Tata and non-Tata brands across lifestyle and electronics. The omni-channel market place will seamlessly integrate store shopping and online buying and will be powered by technology platforms, systems and processes managed through collaboration with other Tata companies.

In digital health, it will connect hospitals, pharmacies, laboratories and consumers, enabling preventive and predictive healthcare.The analytics foray will see the group mining customer data across companies and businesses helping to unveil new opportunities.

The entry of India's largest conglomerate, with revenue topping $100 billion, into e-commerce could raise the competitive stakes in a rapidly growing, but heavily bleeding online commerce sector. A recent Morgan Stanley report estimated that domestic internet market will touch $137 billion by the end of this decade.

The new businesses are part of Mistry's 2025 vision to be among the world's 25 most valuable companies. In March this year, the Tata Group had a market capitalization of $134 billion, up by 17% over the previous year, ranking it at 47 in the world. Reliance Industries, Aditya Birla and Arvind Ltd have unfurled plans to tap the country's consumer internet boom.

At the meeting held at NCPA in south Mumbai, Mistry presented a to-do list which includes measures the group needs to take to succeed in a VUCA (volatility , uncertainty , complexity and ambiguity) world. He stressed on the need to identify new opportunities in the face of discontinuity , a fact he clearly acknowledged to the 1,000-odd Tata executives.

Under Mistry's chairmanship, the group's revenues grew to $109 billion in fiscal 2015, up 5.3% over the previous year. The group invested about $10 billion in FY15, where 68% of its revenues came from outside India. Mistry, 47, said "sustainable profitable growth is the key building block for long-term stakeholder value creation".

Tata group observers said there appears to be a sense of urgency in the manner in which Mistry is executing his objective of getting a quarter of the world's population to experience the Tata Group's commitment to improve quality of life of communities and customers.